The Relationship Between Executive Functions and Lack of Sleep Essay

In the modern world, lack of sleep is regarded as a serious public health challenge that is a frequent complaint in primary care. Ferreira and Almondes (2014) conducted a comprehensive research and determined that about 48 percent of the general population presents lack of sleep complaints and approximately 10 percent of the population meets the disorder diagnostic criteria. The authors maintain that insomnia incidence is higher in women as compared to men in elderly individuals, in shift workers, people with low income, as well as in patients with medical diseases. Similarly, the scholars argue that chronic insomnia contributes to a serious of damages on cognitive capabilities, especially concentration, attention control, and memory. On the same note, the article at hand demonstrates that executive function is a mental operation that controls the most sophisticated forms of human event oriented to objectives. With that said, the investigators maintain that executive functions have a relationship with lack of sleep. The reason is that executive functions involve four serial elements that allow a person to behave as well as respond to situations such as effective performance, volition, and insomnia.

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In addition, Almondes et al. (2016) indicate that executive functions involve a set of top-down higher cognitive processes that are vulnerable to sleep loss as well as impaired in people with depression. It is important to comprehend that the occurrence of impaired executive functions, depressive symptoms, and sleep disturbance show that the aforementioned conditions may be interrelated. The article conducted a comprehensive study to draw attention to a number of aspects that might be considered for advancing knowledge in the preceding sector. In fact, the source presents the connection existing between poor sleep, depressive symptoms, as well as executive functioning in older adults. On the same note, the authors address the issue of the reciprocal influence prevailing between sleep quality, depressive signs, not forgetting executive functioning utilizing a clear definition of sleep complaints as well as valid and reliable instruments for their evaluation. Precisely, the presented articles maintain that there is a close relationship between executive functions and lack of sleep.

Holanda and Almondes (2016) carried out research to investigate the way age-related sleep changes might take part in the extent to which older individuals demonstrate a decline in executive functions. The authors maintain that several sleep parameters differ in the way they benefit or even impair executive sleep. For instance, parameters such as greater wake after sleep onset as well as lower sleep efficiency not forgetting circadian fragmentation of sleep and this indicated consistent outcomes and are related to worsening in executive functions measures. The scholars argue that the process of normal aging influences the sleep-wake regulatory scheme in ultradian, homeostatic, as well as circadian levels. On the same note, healthy aging engages transformations in cognitive functioning; hence, a particular amount of cognitive decline is regarded as a normal part of aging that varies across people as well as cognitive domains.

Additionally, Tucker et al. (2010) conducted an extensive research on the effects of sleep deprivation on executive functions utilizing a task battery that included a modified Sternberg task. In particular, the aforementioned task was selected because it enables the dissociation of a number of critical executive functions from non-executive elements of cognition. It is evident that sleep deprivation influences distinct elements of cognitive processing in different ways. Specifically, dissociated non-executive elements of cognition in executive functions tasks are degraded by sleep deprivation (Pieters et al., 2015). Nevertheless, the executive functions of working memory scanning efficiently as well as resistance to proactive interference are not affected by sleep deprivation nor do they dissociate executive functions of phonemic verbal fluency performance. In simple terms, the selected four articles above indicate that there is a considerable correlation existing between executive functions as well as lack of sleep.

Research indicates that suicide is common among people with psychiatric illness, and in many cases, executive functioning might be linked to suicide risk. For instance, Burton t al. (2011) conducted a comprehensive study to examine clinical, demographic, as well as executive functioning variables in suicide ideators as well as suicide attempters. The authors hypothesized that attempters would depict poorer executive functioning skills. It is noteworthy that executive functions are vulnerable to impairment in psychiatric populations among people with bipolar disorder psychotic diseases, and personality disorder, to mention a few. In particular, executive functioning consist of reasoning as well as problem-solving, planning, strategizing and organizing behavior. Additionally, it consists of inhibiting inappropriate behavior, switching, as well as cognitive flexibility not forgetting monitoring and adjusting an individual's performance. It is important to comprehend that executive functions are associated with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex where response inhibition is linked to the orbitofrontal area.

Modern neuropsychological studies show that suicide attempters do indicate deficits in executive functioning that could lead to suicidality. Some investigators maintain that depresses and high-lethality suicide attempters perform worse as compared to nonpatients on numerous neuropsychological measures as well as perform worse than low-lethality attempters on tests of executive functions. Studies indicate that impaired attention is correlated with suicidal behavior beyond what could be explained by depression. What is more, various scholars assert that decision-making, as well as impulsivity, are connected to suicide attempts to the level that impulsivity might heighten the risk of suicidal behavior; however, might dampen the planning demanded to cause death.

It is important to understand that executive functions present a hierarchical architecture with three fundamental processes sub-serving other more sophisticated cognitive functions. The recognized executive functions include inhibitory control, working memory, as well as cognitive flexibility. Notably, the aforementioned functions emerge early in development as well as are the foundation for the elaboration of the sophisticated executive functions as a challenge-solving, reasoning, abstract thinking, as well as planning (Andrea & Caterina, 2016s). With that said, executive functions are estimated to be impaired in psychiatric diseases. Therefore, the aforementioned patients present a considerable chance of discrimination to adapt to the demands of various contexts, such as social, school, as well as the workplace, to mention a few.

Executive functions make potential mentally playing with concepts that take time to think before acting. The key executive functions include inhibition and interference control, cognitive flexibility, as well as working memory. Notably, utilizing executive functions is effortful because it is easy to continue doing what one has been doing as compared to change. What is more, it is easier to give in to temptation as compared to resist it as well as it is easier to go on automatic pilot than to consider what to do next. In simple terms, the aforementioned functions play a vital role in one's behavior.

Some scholars argue that suicide is one of the leading causes of death in different countries, especially from the West. Some suicide risk aspects consist of psychopathology, suicide attempts, particular demographic variables, as well as psychosocial aspects including lack of social support and life events. In particular, suicide has likened the outcome of interactions that exist between biological aspects. The aforementioned interactions heighten a person's predisposition to suicide character, environmental stressors, as well as psychopathology (McGirr et al., 2010). Specifically, it is evident that neurocognitive function, as well as the physiologic response to stress, are promising intermediate phenotypes that might underlie the familial suicide transmission. Therefore, investigations utilizing family-grounded study designs are significant o test their role as well as possible interaction in suicide vulnerability.

It is important to understand that suicidal behavior that aggregate in different families relates to executive functions. In this case, the noradrenergic dysregulation, as well as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, take part in suicide risk. However, scholars do not have considerable evidence whether stress dysregulation is a heritable character of suicide or the way it might heighten risk. In particular, McGirr et al. (2010) studied stress reactivity of the HPA axis as well as the autonomic nervous system in suicide predisposition as well as characterized the impact of the aforementioned dysregulation on executive function.

It is clear that executive function tests demand the incorporation of numerous cognitive processes that are quite sophisticated. Notably, disruption of the preceding functions, such as abstract thought, cognitive shift, as well as selective attention can contribute to impaired performance. Specifically, the executive function tests selected for the current research are regarded as heritable; hence, appropriate in the context of a family suicide study. Simply put, executive function plays a vital role in offering neuropsychological evidence of cognitive flexibility. In fact, it is incontestable that the relatives of individuals who commit suicide demonstrate dysregulated automatic nervous scheme as well as HPA axis activation and transformations in executive function in response to psychosocial stress.

Lynn Selemon (2013) asserts that adolescent brain maturation is categorized by the emergence of executive function that is mediated by the prefrontal cortex, such as set shifting, inhibition of impulsive character, as well as goal planning. People need to comprehend that synaptic pruning of excitatory contacts is regarded as the signature morphologic activity of late brain maturation during adolescence. Notably, the available evidence proposes that glutamate receptor-mediated synaptic plasticity such as long-term depression is vital for the elimination of synaptic contacts in an individual's brain growth. In particular, the scholar above defines adolescence as the time starting with the onset of puberty as well as ending with the shouldering of adult responsibilities. Specifically, this is considered a time of heightened propensity to involve in risky characters that consist of experimentation with tobacco, sexual behavior, drugs, and alcohol. It is noteworthy that executive functions controlled by the PFC demonstrate a prolonged period of maturation that reaches fulfillment in late adolescence. Specifically, volumetric transformations happening during adolescence have been likened to enhanced cognitive performance such as spatial and verbal memory performance that is related to gray matter thinning in the frontal lobes.

Conclusion

According to Kristen Gray (2013), sleep loss is faced globally as well as influences cognition and emotion in various individuals. Nevertheless, the author maintains that as sleep patterns mature in children, pronounced impacts of sleep on developmental domains might be apparent. The scholar conducted extensive research on manipulated sleep restriction in 4 to 6 years children to determine its impacts on executive function as well as emotion regulation...